Perspective

Life lessons from the bowling alley. 

Brotemarkle, Davis and Company proudly fielded two co-ed teams of 5 people each to participate in the Wine Industry Network 2010 Gutterball Classic fundraiser last Saturday. 

First of all, you have to wonder who decided to associate all of those unfavorable words with this game.  You play the entire game in an “alley” for goodness sakes. That doesn’t sound like the kind of place you want to be after dark.

And then there’s the “gutter”, which for some of …

I arrived at the airport parking lot to see the dark clouds moving closer. Before I could exit the car the lightening began to strike all around.  Not being a big fan of flying, I felt my anxiety level rise.   I scurried off to the terminal to get out of the downpour.

I quickly forgot about the threatening weather as I moved through the security line, then fumbled to get my shoes on, and looked up to read the monitor one more time in search of the correct gate number. Off I …

I learned the importance of strong controls the hard way. This summer, I left for a short vacation. I have a 100 gallon salt water coral fish tank and I thought I had prepared for every possible aquarium contingency before I left.

I had carefully lined up a part-time resource to cover me. I had applied all of the right technology. I had a monitoring system in place. The corals were starting to grow, algae was under control, and everything looked happy.

But, when I returned from my brief trip, my tank was destroyed, with 90% of my corals  either …

While driving down the valley, I was struck by the variety of shapes, colors, and textures in the surrounding landscape and unbidden, my long-term interest in quilt making sprang to mind.

 
The making of quilts began as a “thrift” craft hundreds of years ago.  Odd scraps of fabric left over from making clothing, empty sacks from flour and feed,  and salvageable parts of worn out household items were sewn together to form warm bedding.  In addition to being functional, many of these quilts were …

Well, we heard Tuesday night that we will be sending more troops to Afghanistan.  We also heard that they may start coming home in 2011.  Good luck with that!  This rant is not about whether or not we should send more troops.  I’ll leave that question to our readers. 

The thing we need most from our leaders, whether in business or politics is Clear Vision.  What we often get instead is a muddled lack of clarity and indecision.  That’s what bothered me about Tuesday’s speech.  I heard no real vision or plan, maybe you did, but I did not.  What this …

We’ve all heard the stories about how St. Nick is able to make all of those Christmas Eve deliveries. What would happen if Santa’s team acted like some employees?

Dasher : “I don’t understand why Rudolf always gets to take the lead. I think I have better ideas about how to make these deliveries on time.”

Dancer: “ Let’s start in Norway then work our way back to North America. I would really like to stop by my favorite smoked salmon store to pick up a …

I just finished a fascinating book by Matthew E. May called In Pursuit of Elegance. It includes a number of interesting examples, including concepts drawn from application of the Kaizen method at Toyota.

 But one of its central themes is that elegance requires subtraction.  One of the reasons we are having an economic adjustment right now is that we have spent much of the last five years in an additive state – increasing our ownership of property, buying ever larger automobiles, and packing our homes with stuff. Our corporations were bloated, our governments inefficient, and our time jammed with activities.

We have seen painful …

California has adjusted its tax tables, exemptions, and certain credits for deflation, resulting in a higher tax liability for anyone who has made exactly the same income as they made in 2008.

I was driving through Napa with the air in my face on a perfect day when I saw this hay neatly stacked.  …

After fuming about this issue for a couple of days, I decided to help gather my fellow CPAs together and see what we could do to stop the IRS in their tracks. It seems the IRS has decided to come after some wineries for using LIFO  to value their inventory. 

Last week , with the help of the Napa Valley Vintners Association, we brought Washington Insider, Dean Zerbe, …